Amazon advertising is another powerful ? way to get your customers in front of your products or services. You have several options to choose from to build your advertising campaigns. And as Amazon continues to grow in popularity, (and I mean really grow!) it’s really not an advertising platform you can ignore or leave out of your marketing anymore. Your customers are bound to be on Amazon searching for products like yours every day!
Take a look at these options offered by Amazon.
Why Should You Use Amazon Ads?
Is Amazon the number one place you go shopping? ?? Yes? Well, you’re not alone. We all shop on Amazon! They’ve really made it convenient!
But did you know Amazon is also the number 3 ad platform in the world. I’ll let you take a guess who the other two are!
Amazon made $10 billion in 2018 in ad revenue. And obviously it’s grown a bit since then. That’s one reason to start using Amazon advertising.
Another reason to use Amazon advertising is there is an increase in consumers using Amazon’s search engine for products. There’s even a higher search volume from younger age groups from 18-29.
Search definitely dominates how most people discover new products on Amazon. All that searching has given Amazon tons of shopping and data information. This data can be leveraged for advertising, both on and off their site.
All this data is really important. It shows Amazon advertisers what people are searching for and what they’re buying. It shows what people are in the market for as well. Everything someone bought in the past is kept in their database. All this information helps advertisers target customers with their products and services.
If someone is an Amazon Prime member, their buying behaviours are also tracked really well. Everything they purchase ? and search for is tracked to help advertisers.
Traditional Ad Options on Amazon
There are 2 traditional ad options offered by Amazon. One is sponsored products and the other is sponsored brands. They account for the majority of ad spend on Amazon.
These ads work really well. They’ll pop up when someone is just beginning their shopping journey or when they are almost ready to make a purchase of a product being promoted.
Sponsored Products
Advertisers only pay when someone clicks on these ads. It’s called CPC (cost-per-click). This is a great option for advertisers. The more money you save with CPC the more you put back into advertising.
Sponsored product ads are marked as sponsored but they can look like they’re organic. These are image ? ads and appear in several places around the site. Recently they’ve been showing up on the “Add to Cart” page showing related products to the ones you’re purchasing or ones you’ve recently purchased.
Sponsored Brands
Sponsored brands also run on a CPC basis. They’re intended for brand owners to promote their brand and product portfolio.
After you type in the product you’re searching for, the results will feature a banner at the top of the page. You may have noticed that when you do your own searches for the products you love!
This banner will usually feature 3 products from a related brand. Each unit can look like an organic listing or it can be branded with a headline and logo. If you click on one of those products you will arrive at the destination the advertiser wants you to go.
For example, sponsored traffic can be directed to your Amazon storefront. Your storefront will look like a mini-website that features only your brand and products.
For sponsored brand ads, a brand can choose their own copy and images, which allows them to write creative headlines and copy ?
You Don’t Have To Be An Amazon Retailer To Benefit From Amazon Ads
Amazon may prefer it, but you don’t have to be an Amazon retailer to use Amazon advertising. There are a number of other ways you can use Amazon to promote your products or services.
Advertisers can use Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) and use Amazon’s data and apply it to open ad exchanges. From all that information, advertisers can create highly targeted display ads.
This data includes:
- Purchase histories.
- Product searches.
- Visits to product pages without a purchase.
- Likely next purchases.
- AND MUCH MORE!!!
As you can see Amazon knows how to track ? your purchasing behavior! Amazon DSP ads can send traffic to your own website. Your customers can then learn more about your products or services or make a purchase. Amazon has a pixel to put on your website where you can then track everything and use it for website retargeting.
Loyal Audience Retargeting
You can build a loyal audience when using Amazon advertising. They’re loyal because they’ve purchased from you in the past. And they’ll probably buy from you again in the future. Nice to have that data! ?
Use that data to create a loyalty campaign based on a different number of days since someone looked at your products. It can be 10 days, 7 days or even 3 days. Amazon also offers 30-, 60-, and 90- day audiences. It all depends on the purchasing cycle of a particular product.
Competitor Audience Retargeting
Competitor audience retargeting is unique to Amazon. This strategy may not convert as well as true retargeting audiences, but it is an excellent and powerful way to reach highly qualified prospects.
You can target people who haven’t made a purchase from your competitor but have shown interest in certain products or you can target people who did purchase from a competitor in the past and might be in the market again. Advertisers can create an audience based on that data.
Be sure to only build an audience around similar products as yours and in the same class as the ones you’re advertising. In the same class meaning around the same price ? range and quality.
In Market Audience Targeting
Another way to use Amazon advertising is to build an in-market audience. These are audiences who are actively searching and shopping for categories of products. These are broken down into predefined categories by Amazon.
For example, a toy manufacturer could build an audience of people who are shopping for educational toys for kids ages 4 – 6.
There are thousands of in-market categories to choose from. Amazon even has a tool to help you refine your list.
Search-Based Audience Targeting
A new tool is on the horizon for Amazon advertising! It’s a tool to help you target what people are actually searching for.
If you use this option, you will be able to build an audience based on what your customers search for. Very powerful! ?
Amazon advertising is all about sending ads to buyers – not browsers! People go to Amazon specifically to buy ? The best way to get your products to stand out on Amazon is by advertising. Like I said earlier, Amazon is growing incredibly fast. And it won’t stop growing. IFor advertisers there will be new options popping up as Amazon grows. Advertisers should pay attention to what’s happening on Amazon.